


To Climb a Mountain

by downdeepinside



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe(s), Angst, Explores the idea of an afterlife, F/M, Humour, In a way, Love, M/M, Mpreg, Original Character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downdeepinside/pseuds/downdeepinside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My name is Violet Margret Watson-Holmes.</p>
<p>This is the story of how I died.</p>
<p>WARNING: major character death, mentions of stillborns/miscarriages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Climb a Mountain

**Author's Note:**

> First off I don't own Sherlock and mpreg is heavily implied here so you might not want to read on.
> 
> Secondly, I'm super unsure about this piece but thought 'oh hell' and uploaded it anyway. I've read it through twice and it's in a rather odd syntax so if you see a mistake, I'm not surprised, and would love it if you could point it out.
> 
> This may be a little controversial compared to other stuff I've written - if you want to discuss something with me I might actually die with enthusiasm. You may notice the first two lines are inspired by a certain episode of Doctor Who.
> 
> And finally, thanks for stopping by. I hope it's not crud.

My name is Violet Margret Watson-Holmes.

This is the story of how I died.

***

Father didn’t approve of the double-barrelled last name, thought it was tacky, not to mention dangerous inflicting a baby with the Holmes name. He was some sort of detective, well – is, I suppose. He met all sorts of dangerous types and worried about what would happen if they found out he had a kid. Dad pointed out they’d probably notice when he was waddling into crime scene, a large baby bump attached to his front.

You see, Father’s one of the lucky ones, he can get pregnant. I’ve heard of various worlds – ones where only woman can get pregnant and vice-versa – but it’s not like that where Dad and Father live. Half the population can get pregnant, some men, some woman. I’d say the split is about 70-30, woman getting pregnant much more often than men, but that might just be to do with the sex lives of the citizens.

It’s probably best not to think too hard about that.

Anyway, where was I? Ah, right, yes. Father didn’t approve of the double-barrelled last name but Dad said he was just being an idiot and so, Watson-Holmes. My first name is a family name common to both men, I believe, and Margret is the first name of their old housekeeper. She sold the flat she looked after to Uncle Mycroft when Father faked his death and went to live with her sister in the country.  I hear they hate each other, but that’s sort of what family’s about, isn’t it? You kind of hate each other, and you kind of love each other, and you just carry on regardless.

I guess that’s what it’s like, anyway. I’m smart; I know a lot. I don’t think I’ll ever know what it’s like to have a family.

Ugh. Sorry, sorry, this is hard, and whichever poor bastard has to read this is probably going to go insane. It’s a pretty neat idea this – even if it’s kind of painful. Basically, and this is a seriously simplified version of it all, life consists of a bunch of paths. Everyone’s got one start, and then a bunch of different finishes. Mine… well, mine finished kind of early. But my path is still there, it’s still been drawn and it hasn’t been trashed yet. So I’m allowed to see it. I’m allowed to see this life I could’ve had and then I’m allowed – well, then I’m _made_ – to write this letter. After that I can go. They haven’t told me much about where I can go to yet but… eh, I’ll find out. I suppose. Soon enough.

I can’t give you much detail about where I am right now – that’s forbidden – but telling you how I got here’s allowed. And since I haven’t got much else to write, I’ll do that. I’ll tell you how I got here.

My name is Violet – as you know. I’ve known my name is Violet since I was just twenty weeks in my Father’s womb – they say at sixteen weeks a foetus can hear, but my parents hadn’t picked a name by then. They decided they didn’t want to find out what sex I was going to be so they chose two lots of names; despite Father’s insistence I was a girl. I’m glad he chose my name, because Dad was in charge of the boy and chose ‘Hamish Croft Watson-Holmes’: That’s just horrendous.

My hair’s dark and curly – thought there isn’t much of it, and my eyes are (obviously) blue. Maybe they’d have stayed blue, like Dad’s. I’m quite small – but that’s sort of the point.

I told you Father’s a detective, I think he’s a private one since he only seems to do small amounts of work with the police. His name is Sherlock Holmes – maybe you could look him up? Maybe you’ve heard of him. Maybe you met him once; I suppose he might’ve helped you.

My Dad helps people, too. He was in the army when he was younger, an army-doctor doing all sorts of fascinatingly disgusting things in Afghanistan. When he retired he returned to London, met Father, and got a job in a small clinic. He helps Father with cases but I think he still misses the excitement of holding someone’s life in his hands. He lives round the corner from St Bartholomew’s Hospital – maybe he’ll go back there once day and work in A&E or something. I don’t know.

I hope they’re both happy, whatever happens.

I believe their story’s quite epic. I don’t know if we get to take things on with us to this next place but if we do I want to take their story. Father faked his own death to save Dad and Dad, well, Dad punched him for it. My Dad isn’t some kind of damsel in distress and he was _pissed._ He made Father grovel – and he even got engaged to this boring woman named Mary. He was standing at the alter with her, Father off in some dark flat somewhere playing mournful violin, when Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade walked in. He walked in, his shoes making that clipping sound they all do on hard-wood floors, and Dad looked up hoping to see Father. That was when he realised the man at the door was some dull person called Greg, and not Sherlock, and that was when he realised the person standing opposite him was just some dull person called Mary, and not Sherlock. Then he left. Well – then he spoke to Mary in a hushed voice and she slapped him. But after that, he left. And he found Father. And –

Ew. Oh god. And then I suppose I was… created.

It’s safe to say I wasn’t planned, but from what I understand plans rarely work out the way they’re supposed to for my parents. At first they were pretty freaked out, Father especially given he was now expected to eat, sleep, and care for _two_ people instead of one. Luckily, they came round to the idea of me. Dad had always wanted children, anyway, and Father… he treated it as a sort of experiment, at first. I was just some sort of ‘it' until the second ultrasound, when Dad couldn’t make it. Father went in alone and after endless fiddling by the nurse I appeared on the screen, and he just... felt that thing. That thing that made Romeo kill himself, and Dad run away from his own wedding, and my uncle step up the surveillance on Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.

My paths are all pretty similar but I’ll tell you about the longest – since that’s the most interesting. Not many people get to the very end of their longest path – but that’s alright for some people. Dad and Father, for instance: If Dad had died in Afghanistan (and that was one of his finishes, I’m sure) he would never have met Father. And then he’d have got to where I am right now, and seen this wonderful life with this stranger that he never got to have. And that would’ve been the worst. But instead, he’s lived it, and no matter when his path ends, he’s had that love with that man. So he’s at least reached the top of the mountain he’s climbing, even if he didn’t make it all the way back down.

Me? I don’t think I even reached the start of the mountain.

I could’ve been a diagnostician – one of the best. If a doctor couldn’t work out what was wrong with a patient, or if they were having trouble working it out, they’d contact me and I’d tell them. I was very good; and I got to work in all these different places. I went to America, and Scotland, and even India. At the age of 25 I met a boy called Alex and at the age of 29 he asked me to marry him. I said yes, because of that thing, and six weeks before our wedding day he got hit by a bus. In every universe his longest path leads to an overtired bus driver in Piccadilly Circus one January in 2049. His mountain’s an awful lot shorted than most people’s.

After Alex I float around for a while, I meet various men – a few women, too – and we date. Or we don’t. One night I forget that I’ve got work and decide not to meet up with a man I met online – in another universe I remember and we do meet, and he takes me back to his flat, and that’s the end of the road.

I’m nearly 40 when I finally meet my Sherlock Holmes, or John Watson. He’s a businessman from America, though he has British heritage. Nathan Adler. His eyes are sharp blue and his hair is dark like Fathers. His nose is a little snub and his manners practically non-existent, but it doesn’t matter.

We reach the top of the mountain together.

After the summit we tumble back down hand-in-hand, I live till 85 and I die just moments after Nathan. We’re shot. Some men who hadn’t liked his mother had had children, and left legacies, and those legacies never really forgot about one Irene Adler – not long dead. And so they kill her only child, and her only daughter-in-law.

It’s as if I was always meant to die by a bullet.

***

I’ve been avoiding the point I set out to make for a while now; and my 2,000 words are nearly up, so I’ll conclude.

My name is Violet Margret Watson-Holmes, and this is the story of how I died:

It’s a debate many scientists have argued over for years; was a still-born child ever really alive? Does it die?

I think it does – I think _I_ did.

It was two weeks before I was due to be born when my Father got into a cab, half asleep, and didn’t notice the driver turning left at the end of the road instead of right. It wasn’t until the car rolled up to an abandoned factory besides the Thames he was even aware something was wrong – in a way, that’s my fault. I guess I gave him baby brain.

He sent a text to Dad, it read: _Have been kidnapped, abandoned textile fabric by Thames. Not far from home. Hurry. –SH_.

Father was forced out of the car by a taxi driver with a gun, I expect he was rather frustrated to have fallen for the same trick twice.

He and the taxi driver spoke, Father deciding that playing the part of the frightened pregnant man might buy him some sympathy.

It did not.

Dad arrived after twenty minutes – eighteen minutes too late. The taxi driver’s brother had died in prison and it was Father’s fault, he had no interest in wasting time.

Father lay on the floor, a hand clasped to his lower abdomen where a 9mm calibre had sunk into his skin (not emerging out the other side). His breaths were laboured but he was thankfully still conscious as Dad rushed to him, a police car in tow. An ambulance was called and arrived within two minutes, Father was rushed to hospital and into surgery.

I was almost a second thought.

The driver had been clever. He’d wanted Father to feel what he had felt when his brother died and so he took me away from him. He shot me.

And my path stopped.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading (I'm sorry).
> 
> Comments and kudos are always nice if I deserve them :-')


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